BeFriending Creation - QEW

Book Review: Nothing Lowly in the Universe: An Integral Approach to the Ecological Crisis by Jennie M. Ratcliffe

By Ruah Swennerfelt. MANY, MANY YEARS ago, after having a deep-felt conversation with my father, who wanted to blindly trust his government, I gave him Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner. I chose that book because Dad lived in Southern California, a desert turned into a false oasis of millions of homes using…

Poems: “The Earth is Us” and “gifts”

By Mary Ann Iyer. The cells of this earth are our cells. The wind that blows across its surface is the self same air that we breathe. Our life blood courses through our veins with no less certainty than the rivers cascading…

Roadmaps to a Better Future: Analyzing Climate Change Solutions Without Geoengineering

By Judy Lumb. HOW DO WE ensure a future on Earth for humans and other creatures? Three recent reports analyze solutions to climate change that meet the ambition of the Paris Agreement. The Climate Urgency: Setting Sail for a New Paradigm Coopération Internationale pour le Développement et la Solidarité (CIDSE)…

Is (the) Paris (Agreement) Burning?

By Shelley Tanenbaum. THE MOST RECENT Conference of the Parties (COP), held in Madrid, Spain in December, appeared to balance the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 on a knife’s edge, a sharpened knife’s edge. Lindsey Cook of Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) referred to this conference as “the COP25 of…

Interfaith Earthcare Touchstones

Compiled by Beverly G. Ward. “A touchstone transcends any one religion, thought, or spiritual tradition and serves as a guide. These touchstones provide examples of specific prayers, passages or scripture, or inspirations from various sacred texts or philosophical writings associated with diverse traditions.” Last year I joined faith leaders at…

Group sitting in circle at Ben Lomond Quaker Center

Young and Old for Climate Justice

By Hayley Hathaway. GEORGE LAKEY, lifelong civil rights activist, and Friend, hosted “Young and Old for Climate Justice: A Dialog” at Quaker Center in Ben Lomond, CA this January. Forty Friends, ages ranging from 15 to 80, joined the weekend-long retreat in the redwoods. Shelley Tanenbaum, QEW’s General Secretary, and…

Considering Limits to Human Population Size

Friends have long been concerned about how we live on our Earth and how we can best support a good life for everyone and all species. Sustainability requires that we use Earth’s resources at a level that provides a reasonable life for all now and maintains…

Farming for Social Change

By Sayrah Namaste “To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves,” Gandhi said. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has been addressing the impacts of climate change through programs in New Mexico, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Baltimore, to name a few.

For the Love of the Land

By Pamela Haines. I’VE LOVED THIS bit of land for over fifty years. Coming up over the hill, my heart always opens anew to the jewel of a valley spread out below, part of the rolling farmland and woodlots of central New York state. My father bought an old farm…

Flows Repeatedly: Learnings from the Menominee Nation

By Tom Small. NAPANOH PEMECWAN—Menominee for “flows repeatedly.” In nature, there is no foreground or background, no hierarchy, only relations, patterns of change and repetition. Train yourself to see the repeated patterns, to understand, feel, and identify with the flow. With these two Menominee words and their implications, Jeff Grignon,…

Listening to Roots, Walking in Beauty

By Mey Hasbrook. IN THE MEADOW, I gave thanks beside a beech tree. Sunset neared after a beautiful day with Swarthmoor Area Meeting of Southwest Cumbria, England. This area is called “the cradle of Quakerism” and brings to mind The Valiant 60, the 17th-century law-breaking mystics and traveling ministers from…

Beckoned by Living Trees

By Marcelle Martin THE FIRST TREE that beckoned me silently, long ago, was a sapling on the far side of a lawn. When I investigated, I discovered it was being strangled by an orange plastic band encircling its trunk. After the sapling had been purchased from a local nursery, the…

Cultivating the Next Generation of Naturalists

Fayetteville Arkansas Quakers Create Native Plant Garden for Ozark Natural Science Center By Eric Fuselier. The Fayetteville Monthly Meeting recently planted a native plant garden at the Ozark Natural Science Center (ONSC) located south of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. This native plant garden was a gift to ONSC, which is a…

Emma Condori from Bolivia, Barb Adams from Richmond VA and Hayley Hathaway IMYM

“We Had Something, Now We Don’t.” Bolivian Friends Face the Climate Crisis

By Emma Condori Mamani. My name is Emma Condori. I am from Bolivia. I was born near Lake Titicaca. Most of my childhood was very beautiful because I was raised in community life in one of the indigenous communities we have in Bolivia, called Aymara. One thing I really appreciated…

Three people stand in front of light pink house with porch

Casa Pueblo: Truly the People’s House

By Liz Robinson. THIS STORY STARTS with Hurricane Maria and our Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting’s decision to select Casa Pueblo as the beneficiary for our 12th month charitable giving. Because of its outstanding reputation, and its amazing hurricane-disaster recovery work providing solar energy to restore power to vital community services…

The Call and Response

By Mey Hasbrook. THIS SUMMER at the Friends General Conference Gathering’s Earthcare Center, I spoke on “Transformative Earthcare: 18th-century Benjamin Lay for Today.” I shared how this third-generation Quaker lived a radical life at the intersections of concerns that continue to weigh upon us today. In the 2017 biography The…

When Climate Change Gets Personal

By Gayle Matson FOR 60 OF MY 65 YEARS I lived in Seattle and Portland, surrounded by snow-capped mountains and lush forests. The natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest is truly spectacular, though climate change has brought even rainier winters to the area. Last year, after pining for sunnier weather…

School’s Out

Shelley Tanenbaum This past June was the hottest June on record, ever. This July was the hottest month ever recorded. Earlier this summer, temperatures were so high in France that exams were cancelled. You might not realize how significant this is, so let me put it in perspective by telling…

Green sweat bee on New England aster. Photo by Dave Crawford

How to Help Pollinators in Your Own Neighborhood

By Dave Crawford. Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass, 2014) suggests humans can restore natural landscapes as a gift to Earth in exchange for the gifts nature provides to humans. She suggests that Earth might say “thank you” to humans for doing this. I’ve done this in my yard, and Earth…

An Easter Reflection with Joanna Macy

By Sara Jolena Wolcott. “What do you envision for the future?” Joanna Macy—Buddhist eco-philosopher, scholar of deep ecology and systems theory—asked me last night, over a dinner of orange yams and tofu and lemon broccoli. Every time I visit her in her Berkeley home, she feeds me these bright orange…

Image: Councilman Derek Green (right),a public banking advocate, addresses local lobbyists at Philadelphia City Hall on Lobby Day (Rita in blue and Pamela in teal). Photo: Stanley Shapiro.

Public Banking, Divine Vocations, and Fertile Ground

By Pamela Haines. THE ECO-JUSTICE Collaborative (EJC) of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting has endorsed an effort in Philadelphia to create a public bank. Similar to credit unions for individuals, a public bank would hold public funds in the city to be directed toward local needs, rather than paying for big banks to…

A Story of Interbeing: A Book Review of Climate: A New Story By Charles Eisenstein

By Ruah Swennerfelt. I’VE JUST FINISHED reading Climate: A New Story by Charles Eisenstein and am so moved by the wisdom I found between the covers. Eisenstein critiques the climate movement, arguing that the reliance on numbers, such as 350, facts, and data will not bring about the changes that are needed…

Southern Appalachian Quaker Youth Respond to Climate Crisis

By Robert McGahey. ARTHUR MORGAN SCHOOL and Celo Monthly Meeting recently hosted Southern Appalachian Young Friends (SAYF) for their annual retreat here. The Quaker Earthcare Witness Outreach Committee contacted the organizers to share about our work, leading an afternoon session with the youth. After a rigorous hike to idyllic Strawberry…

Feeding Us with Love and Local Tradition

By Bonnie Peace Watkins AS THE TWIN CITIES Friends Meeting Fellowship Committee, we were excited about the Quaker Earthcare Witness Spring Steering Committee meeting here in mid-April. We have long felt that food and fellowship are vital parts of witnessing, sharing, and caring for our beautiful planet. As we prepared…

Awaking Across the Branches of Friends

By Shelley Tanenbaum. SOMETHING SPECIAL happened at the March 2019 Friends World Committee on Consultation Section of the Americas meeting. Friends from across the branches of the Religious Society of Friends came together to express our love for the land and our dedication to environmental justice, with each of us…

Quaker Teachers Take on Climate Change and Restore Mexican Cloud Forest

By Paula Kline. Alan Wright and Paula Kline first took students to the Mexican Cloud Forest in 2003. Teachers at Westtown School in southeastern Pennsylvania, the couple had initiated the Quaker school’s agriculture program for its bi-centennial in 1999. Inspired by the ground breaking work of John Jeavons’ approach to…

So You’re Ready to Take Action Against Climate Change

Josephine Ferorelli created this flow chart—a helpful resource for anyone who doesn’t know where to start. Josephine is the co-founder and co-director of Conceivable Future, a women-led network bringing awareness to the threat climate change poses to reproductive justice, and demanding an end to US fossil fuel subsidies. Click…

The Changing Context of United Nations Climate Negotiations

By Philip Emmi. It is increasingly clear that we have gotten off on the wrong foot when addressing climate change. It can not be primarily a matter of nation-state cooperation on international policy, as once thought. Rather, addressing climate change requires a multi-pronged approach including attention to climate science, finance,…

The Bare Minimum: COP Climate Change Conference

By Lindsey Fielder Cook. THE AIM OF THE DECEMBER climate change conference in Poland, known as the Conference of Parties 24 (or COP24), was to define an implementation ‘Rulebook’ for the Paris Agreement. After two weeks of exhausting, if not ‘fierce’ negotiations, how did it all go? It depends on…

Pachamama Alliance Promotes Grassroots Drawdown Action

By Keith Voos. I’M SURE THAT MOST readers of this newsletter hold it to be true that the human race now faces the biggest threat to its survival since its near extinction in the last ice age, when the population of the earth was reduced to between 15,000 and 18,…

Project Drawdown In Practice

By Ruth Darlington. WHEN PAUL HAWKEN’S book Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming came out in 2017, many hailed it as the “new Green Bible.” I rushed to get a copy. When I held it in my hands, it felt like proof that there really was something…

Let Nature Teach

By Dan Kriesberg. AN EXCELLENT MEASURE of how much children are learning is to count the number of times the teacher says “Pay attention.” The fewer “pay attentions” the more learning. In my own experience of 30 years as a science teacher, a 4th-grade teacher, and even as a swim…

Finding Peace in Troubled Times

By Jay O’Hara. ON CHRISTMAS EVE I went out with my in-laws to church service in upstate New York. The big crowd gathered in the chapel on the campus of Cornell University, and the minister hit all the right notes for this presumably liberal crowd: alluding to the occupant of…

Changing Together? The COP24

By Frank Granshaw and Annette Carter. IN DECEMBER 2018 the 24th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (COP24) met in Katowice, Poland. Their task was to hammer out the rulebook by which the world could achieve the goals set forth…

Kallan Benson sits on her butterfly parachute

A Quaker Youth’s Journey in Climate Activism

By Kallan Benson. AS A 15-YEAR OLD QUAKER, I am accustomed to silence. I understand it is not empty; it can hold profound power. I have felt my spirit resonate in the silence of my Quaker community, but silence has recently taken me outside the meetinghouse to the steps of…

Going Green is Easy and Cheaper Now

A Peek into Quaker Institute for the Future’s new book Energy Choices: Opportunities to Make Wise Decisions for a Sustainable Future by Bob Bruninga Review by Judy Lumb. WE ARE NEVER MORE than a few years away from making a major personal energy decision: • when we pay our electricity bill •…

Report from the Global Climate Action Summit

By Larry Strain. I attended the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) in San Francisco this September as a delegate of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). I also attended two affiliated events – The Carbon Smart Building Day and Climate Heritage Mobilization. I’ve been working on reducing Green House Gas…

A few people walking ona very straight, flat highway

First Nation – Farmer Climate Unity March

An Introduction By Jeff Kisling. Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) Friends Peter Clay and I recently walked on the First Nation-Farmer Climate Unity March. A group of about thirty that included nearly a dozen Native Americans walked 94 miles along the route of the Dakota Access Pipeline from September 1 –…

Birds, Bees, and Butterflies: Monthly Meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas Creates New Habitat for Wildlife

By Eric Fuselier. LAST YEAR FAYETTEVILLE Monthly Meeting’s Quaker Earthcare Witness Committee started a project to improve the grounds at our meetinghouse, the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology, to include more habitat for wildlife, with the ultimate goal of the Center becoming certified as a wildlife habitat by…

A Fight for The Yintah

By Daniel Kirkpatrick. THE THIRTY OF US STOOD in a quiet circle in the gravel on a sunny, cool morning. Wood smoke rose toward the sky from the adjacent lodge, and boreal forests surrounded the clearing. A First Nations elder, Lht’at’en, spoke in her Wet’suwet’en dialect, offering a prayer before…

A Simple Freedom or Was it Just a Dream?

By Avotcja Jiltonilro Once upon a time when the world was green When this Earth was heaven The trees used to sing to us & we sang their praises Danced in honor of their beauty And reveled in the millions of gifts they gave us…

A red circle that says "Sacred" painted on the ground with a group of people in the background in San Francisco

Seeking Grace: Reflections from the Rise Up for Climate, Jobs & Justice Mobilization

By Shelley Tanenbaum. WE CAN’T FULLY ADDRESS A TRANSITION from fossil fuels to renewables without limiting fossil fuel extraction. That is the message delivered in countless street actions (including 30,000 people during an art-inspired march on a perfect California day) and unofficial workshops held throughout the Bay Area, first as…

Photo of speaker at Global Climate Action Summit

The Global Climate Action Summit From the Row behind the VIP Section

By Mica Estrada. “OUR PLANET IS NOT for sale! Our air and water are not for sale! Our land is not for sale!” This chant rose from the audience as Michael Bloomberg took the stage at the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) held in San Francisco, September 13 & 14,…

Jenny Chapman stands in protest alongside five other people

Stewardship is a Likely Place to Start: Mountain Valley Pipeline Resistance

By Jenny Chapman Jenny Chapman, a birthright Quaker whose ancestors made the pilgrimage to America with William Penn, lives on a farm on Bent Mountain in rural southwest Virginia and is a member of Roanoke Friends Meeting. She and her husband raised their two sons on the Mountain and now…

Book Review: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis

By Shelley Tanenbaum. GREAT MINDS AND SAVVY organizers repeatedly stress that we need to articulate a vision if we hope to build a successful movement for political and cultural change, yet rarely do those great minds articulate a vision themselves. I am happy to lift up George Monbiot’s latest book, Out…

Photo of people during a protest, a man holding a sign that says "Power Local Green Jobs"

Love & Political Power

By Bruce Birchard I WANT TO LIFT UP two sentences from Martin Luther King’s 1967 address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference about the relationship between love and power: “What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and…

Divestment for Social Change

By Kent Walton. HONORING THE ANCIENT adage to “put your money where your mouth is,” Roanoke Friends in Virginia organized a meeting after worship to inform members about divesting from fossil fuel companies. Presented by the Meeting’s Peace and Social Justice Committee, Roanoke Friend and financial advisor Tom Nasta…

Changing Corporations for the Better: Shareholder Engagement

By Kate Monahan. CORPORATIONS ARE PART of our daily lives. When it comes to halting climate change, we need the meaningful participation of corporations. As Shareholder Engagement Associate at Friends Fiduciary, I’ve seen significant, concrete change come from a company modifying a practice or policy as a result of engagement…

To Address Climate Disruption, Start Here.

Concrete Steps from Quaker Earthcare Witness’ Sustainability, Faith & Action Working Group Many of these suggestions are based on the work of Paul Hawken and his team of scientists in their book DRAWDOWN and their website, www.drawdown.org. ENERGY Individual/Meeting: Install solar panels; buy 100% clean and renewable electricity wherever…

Mini-Grants at Work 2018

QUAKER EARTHCARE WITNESS offers grants to Friends’ organizations who want to enhance their physical/spiritual relationship with the Earth. We offer matching grants of up to $500 and you can apply anytime. We support projects which: Improve your immediate environment Involve, inform, and educate May reduce carbon footprints Create opportunities to…

Meeting for Mourning: New England Friends Worship at Power Plant

By Hayley Hathaway. ON SATURDAY, JULY 28, 2018 I joined about 30 Friends from five New England states at the gates of the recently opened Salem Harbor Station, a natural gas (methane) power plant on the coast of Massachusetts. We gathered for a Meeting for Worship for the purpose of…

Example of Flyer for Sustainable movie screening

Building a Community for Change: Hosting A Movie Night

By Ruth Darlington. WHAT DO YOU DO when you are led to reach out about climate change, but you don’t know who else in your community cares about it? Last September, Medford Meeting in New Jersey co-hosted an all-day climate change film festival with the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, a local…

Congress, Climate, & the Desktop Lobbyist

By Bob Schultz. THE U.S. CONGRESS MAY BE one of the most foot-dragging institutions on the planet with respect to addressing climate disruption, yet we can find some hope in the emergence of the House Climate Solutions Caucus, a bipartisan group of U.S. Representatives that meets regularly to advance climate…

A NSNP Youth Saves Seed from Cilantro Plants

Praying on Seeds: Solidarity for Puerto Rican Sovereignty

By Marian Dalke. SUNDAY MORNING’s soft light casts through deep wooden windows. The light shifts and picks up the soft cotton of milkweed seeds, sailing over the heads of those gathered for Quaker Meeting for Worship at Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting. Grace Gonglewski shares a message about “praying on seeds,”…

The Small Water Cycle & Global Warming

By Christopher Haines. WHEN JIMMY CARTER ASKED scientist Charles Keeling for advice in 1978 on what the government should do about climate change, Keeling said that the problem was far too complicated for people to understand, so focus on greenhouse emissions. Since then, reducing greenhouse emissions has been the principal…

Let the Youth Be Heard: Making the Courts Confront the Climate Crisis

By Shelley Tanenbaum. YOUNG PEOPLE, who are facing a disturbing future due to increasing climate catastrophes, can often feel like their voices are not heard. Lacking power, influence, and even the right to vote, some youth have turned to the courts. In 2015, 21 youth plaintiffs plus Dr. James Hansen…

Rapid City Friends Ask Your Meeting to Send a Letter to Congress

By Rapid City Friends and Rapid City chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby Rapid City Friends, an unaffiliated worship group in Rapid City, South Dakota, in conjunction with the local chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby, has taken action as a community: As Quakers, we are called to work for the peaceable…

Shelley giving a mock presentation about QEW to Yearly Meeting Representatives

Engaging in Earthcare at Yearly Meetings

DO YOU KNOW who is your Yearly Meeting representative to Quaker Earthcare Witness? DO YOU KNOW who is your Yearly Meeting representative to Quaker Earthcare Witness? Our 31 Yearly Meeting Representatives serve as liaisons between QEW and their Yearly Meetings, sharing information about what is on the hearts and minds…

Book Review: The New Green Activist Bible?

Review Catherine de Neergaard In DRAWDOWN: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, Paul Hawken and his team of scientists have identified the 100 most effective actions to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. They define “drawdown” as “… that point in time when the concentration…

Yellow signs on foloor that say Support, Transform to Put Climate in the Budget. It's urgent

Toronto Meeting Hosts ClimateFast Initiative

By Lyn Adamson TORONTO MONTHLY MEETING’S Peace and Social Action Committee has supported the work of ClimateFast, a Canadian climate action group, since its inception in 2012. For the first three years, ClimateFast focused on federal climate action with periods of fasting, a vigil on Parliament Hill, and a pledge…

Beverly Ward Collecting Tidewater Sample

Rising Together: Community Health Mapping in South Florida

By Beverly G. Ward MANY COMMUNITIES in South Florida experience “sunny day” flooding during periods of very high or “king” tides. During a new or full moon, when the sun and the moon are aligned with Earth in their orbits, the gravitational pull on the oceans is at its strongest,…

Group of people writing no leaves under a light

Adding Leaves to the Grove of Life

By Regula and Michael Russelle. AN ALL-NIGHT, OUTDOOR EVENT. One thousand passersby publicly claim their practices and promises to reduce climate change. Each attaches a paper leaf with a personal, hand-written testimony like “bicycle everywhere,” “no food waste,” “share housing,” “travel by train” to a branch on a small grove…

Sweet Balance with Earth

By Ann Marie Klaus. I have to admit, I do not harbor a wish to save Earth or reverse the process she is undergoing. Nor do I worry for her. Earth, in my mind, is a powerful, exquisite being, undergoing the same process of expansion that every bit of the…

Peace, Justice and Ecology in Arkansas

By Eric Fuselier. Friends, we are happy to announce that we recently formed a Quaker Earthcare Committee within the monthly meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Members of the committee have a lot of passion and knowledge about the environment and we’re really excited about the projects we have going on here.

Spiritual Ecology Center Opens in Mexican Cloud Forest

By Paula Kline. For more than a decade, my husband and I have hosted high school students for an annual Environmental Leadership Workcamp in the cloud forest of Veracruz, Mexico. A project of Westtown School’s Quaker Leadership Program, students return home transformed by their hands-on experiences with sustainable agriculture, living…

40 Quakers With 30 Agendas

By Tom Small. “FORTY QUAKERS WITH 30 different agendas.” That’s how I characterized—only half-jokingly—the Quaker Earthcare Witness Steering Committee when I was its Clerk from 1996 to 1998. The Friends Committee on Unity with Nature—that’s what we called ourselves back then. So where was the Unity in all those differences?…

The Gift That Keeps on Giving: Updates at Catoctin Quaker Camp

By Liz Hofmeister. ON SEPTEMBER 30TH, former campers, counselors, and others long associated with Baltimore Yearly Meeting’s Catoctin Quaker Camp marked the 60th anniversary of the residential summer camp located some 50 miles west of Baltimore, MD. A highlight of the weekend celebration was the dedication of the camp’s new…

Population: A Controversial Witness

By Stan Becker. FRIENDS COMMITTEE on Unity with Nature (FCUN) was born in 1987 at the Friends General Conference gathering plenary. There, Marshall Massey outlined all the environmental threats we faced on planet earth. Except he missed one. He did not mention the rapid growth in numbers of our own…

United With Nature: A Historic Reflection on QEW

By Judy Lumb. In 1987, I was sick in Belize, an isolated Friend. My Meeting for Worship was reading Friends Journal in my hammock. I learned to keep pen and paper handy because my version of speaking in Meeting was to write letters. When the notice of the creation of Friends Committee…

Legislating Light with FCNL

By Scott Greenler and Emily Wirzba. AT THE FRIENDS COMMITTEE on National Legislation (FCNL), the Quaker testimony of stewardship underpins our climate work. We see human actions inflicting harm to the earth, and as caretakers, or stewards, we are compelled to act. We watch with deep pain as the president…

Green in Sacramento

By Shelley Tanenbaum. I TOOK A DAY OFF from QEW work to join ‘Green Lobby Day’ in my state capital, Sacramento. I highly recommend that you do the same in your state. As much as we want to see strong national legislation, significant government action, at least in the near…

US coins falling out of clear jar on white background

Money & Soul: Bringing Our Faith Values to the Economy

By Pamela Haines. TO THEOLOGIAN WALTER WINK, Spirit is at the core of every institution. These institutions, or Powers, are created with the sole purpose of serving the general welfare of people, and when they cease to do so, their spirituality becomes diseased. The task of the church is to…

Potential Surprises

By Shelley Tanenbaum. A LARGE GULF EXISTS between those who understand the magnitude of the environmental crisis we are facing and those who, willfully or not, remain unaware and disengaged. Just look around your community or your meetinghouse. Most people are not necessarily climate deniers or uncaring about the environment.

Organizing for Community and Climate

By Jaime DeMarco. I RECENTLY HELPED CO-FOUND the Maryland Clean Energy Jobs Initiative, a new non-profit working to pass legislation in Maryland that will do three things. It will expand renewable electricity in Maryland to 50% by 2030, invest in renewable energy companies owned by women and people…

Rooted in Reverence: Reflections on the Climate Pilgrimage

By Honor Woodrow. I AM WRITING TO SHARE a reflection on my experience of the recent Climate Pilgrimage, where Friends from New England and fellow travelers spent six days walking the 60 miles from the Schiller Station (which burns both coal and wood) in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to the Merrimack…

May We Rise up From the Earth

By Julia Bixler Isaacs. May we be grounded with the strength of the earth, May our love for the planet burn bright like fire, May visions of wholeness rise up on wings of air, May our actions flow with the ease of water, And may the dance…

Ecological Living at Quaker Retirement Community

By Elizabeth Boardman. PERHAPS, IF WE HAD ASKED THEM, our grandchildren could have told us before we came here to Friends House what benefits we would accrue by moving out of the big family home to a small apartment. And now we could tell them the advantages of a communal…

Environmental Author Cynthia Barnett Talks to QEW

Cynthia Barnett, the author of three books focused on water: Rain: A Natural and Cultural History, Blue Revolution: Unmaking America’s Water Crisis, and Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S., shares her insight on climate and water with QEW Publications Coordinator Hayley Hathaway. You now have written…

Denali National Park and Preserve, United States

Juneau’s Journey Toward Renewable Energy

By Margo Waring. JUNEAU, ALASKA COULD BE A MODEL for cities across the nation. A new non-profit called Renewable Juneau is trying to make this happen. Our mission is to “Promote local, renewable energy to create a healthy, prosperous, and low-carbon future for Juneau.” We decided to keep our focus…

Quakers At Interfaith Sit-In on Statehouse Steps in Annapolis

Friends Help Ban Fracking in Maryland

By Karie Firoozmand. ON APRIL 4, Maryland’s Governor Larry Hogan signed legislation prohibiting fracking in the state. This is a huge success for the individuals and organizations that have been working together for this goal for several years, as well as a precedent for other states. I have been working…

Photo of Standing Rock encampment by Shelley Tanenbaum

A Call for More Radical Witness

By Tom Small. “THERE’S A CALL, from both within and beyond FCUN, for a more radical witness.” That’s the first sentence of an article I wrote twenty years ago for BeFriending Creation. What was true for the Friends Committee on Unity with Nature in 1996 holds true again for the…

Earth Prayer

By Janet Soderberg. Divine Creator, Spirit in All Things, Your kingdom is Here, and Now. Your creativity is manifest everywhere I look on this heavenly Earth. Nourish us Body and Soul in this earthly Paradise. Forgive us for not noticing, for overlooking, the tiny, the subtle, The…

Down to Earth: Interview with Quaker Filmmaker Andy Burt

“I didn’t set out to make a film,” says Andy Burt, the creator and director of the new documentary film, Down to Earth: Climate Justice Stories. “I set out to go collect stories. It was young friends who said ‘you should do a video.’ So that’s why you have…

One Dollar at a Time: Defunding DAPL

By Jeff Kisling. IN INDIANAPOLIS we have been working on defunding the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) for several months. On November 15, 2016, a crowd of about 200 of us alongside Native Americans in traditional dress marched through downtown Indianapolis with our signs about defunding the pipeline. We stopped in…

Journey to the End

By J.T. Dorr-Bremme. IN JULY 2009, I had things pretty well figured out. I had, after six years of on-and-off study, achieved a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing. I had been hired into a new-graduate program, an increasingly rare opportunity in the post-financial-crisis economy, at a nearby hospital. I…

Advice for These Times

By Shelley Tanenbaum. TWO OF MY RECENT READS have made a strong impression on me as I ponder how I as an individual and how Quaker Earthcare Witness as an organization can best use our resources in these times. Van Jones succinctly sums up the two opposing world views we…

Shock and Awe: Climate Action

By Bob McGahey. FROM MY PERSPECTIVE as a climate journalist and activist, the ascension of an outright climate denialist as the President, with cabinet choices of a half-dozen more, completes the campaign of disinformation mounted by the fossil fuel industry, aided and abetted by virtually the entire Republican Party. The…

Photo by American Public Power Association on Unsplash

Solar Soars as Costs Plummet

By Shelley Tanenbaum. AMIDST THE 2016 END-OF-YEAR bad news all around, you might have missed this: utility-scale solar is now the least expensive way to install new sources of electricity. Onshore wind is a close second. Currently, solar and wind are at just about the same capital cost for installation,…

A Field Secretary for Earthcare

By Brad Stocker, Miami Friends Meeting. FOUR YEARS AGO, the Southeastern Yearly Meeting (SEYM) Earthcare Committee (EcC) brought forth a Minute on Climate Change that was approved the 14th day of the fourth month, 2014, which reads in part: “We, the Friends of Southeastern Yearly Meeting, bring this minute forward…

Book Review: “The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate”

By Tom Small. PETER WOHLLEBEN TELLS THE STORY of a professional forester’s awakening from calculations of board feet to realization of a forest as an intelligent, feeling community. Sharing information and resources through what Wohlleben calls the “wood wide web,” the forest community cooperates so as to ensure that “each…

Bringing Light to the Dark: Environmental Violence

By Brad Stocker, Miami Friends Meeting. ONE OF THE MORE POIGNANT things to have affected my earthcare work was 2016’s QEW table and display, which had a darker element than in the past as it focused attention on those who have been killed for their involvement in environmental justice. We…

Hundreds of people with red sign that says "Defend the Sacred"

Reflections on Standing Rock

Sacred Stone, Clean Water, Gathering People By Shelley Tanenbaum, QEW General Secretary. The gathering at Standing Rock, with more than 280 indigenous tribes represented, is historic and has been an inspiration to all of us. The ongoing gathering is being held to block construction of the Dakota pipeline that threatens…

Bright green spring flower about to blossom with dew

Live in Possibility: A Voluntary Carbon Tax

By Alan Eccleston, Mount Toby Friends Meeting. In meeting for worship four years ago I was meditating on climate change and what I was called to do about it. Words rose up, “I live in possibility,” which I attribute to Emily Dickinson. I had a deep realization this is a…

Reflections on Translating the Resistance in Brazil

By Meg Kidd. Recognition by QEW of the re-emergent sense of the Divine in light of the resistance at Standing Rock continues to breathe air into the indigenous struggle to share millennial wisdom of peoples throughout the world. Noted on October 3 is this struggle from Standing Rock to Bagua…

Quakers’ Solar Canopy

By Don Vessey, San Diego Friends Meeting. America is fast realizing the importance of solar energy. Switching to solar power is not only an environmental necessity, but it makes financial sense as well. It reduces global warming not only by reducing the use of fossil fuels, but potentially in other…

Alaskans Demand Climate Justice and Clean Energy

Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition’s Next Step

By Cathy Walling, Chena Ridge Friends Meeting, Fairbanks, AK. “I love to feel where words come from.” I have long loved that quote from our Quaker heritage story of the indigenous man Papunehang hearing John Woolman preaching. He didn’t know what Woolman was saying, but he knew it was coming…

Ecological Guidance and the Sense of the Divine

By Keith Helmuth. The fate of the human now hangs on our engagement with ecological guidance; the task Thomas Berry calls “the Great Work.” The sense of guidance provided by the ecological worldview is not unlike a new revelation, perhaps even a new sense of the Divine. We may not…

Reverence and Right Action

By David Jaber I was not raised Quaker, but instead came to Quakerism after having developed an environmental conscience that has very much shaped my life and how I spend my time. You might take that as one indicator of the compatibility of deep earth ethics with Quaker practice. Let’s…

What’s Emerging?

By Sara Wolcott. What is it that Quakerism contributes to my ecological journey? I am vexed by this question. Five years ago, when my primary sense of religious belonging was nestled deep within the Religious Society of Friends, it would have been easy for me to answer. My confidence that…

A Blueprint for Climate Action

By Paul Klinkman Friends are encouraged to expand their carbon handprint. Increasing Friends’ involvement can have considerably more impact on the world’s climate than if they simply shrink their carbon footprint. I see Friends acting in four somewhat distinct directions: Personal and corporate witness: Abolitionists wouldn’t own slaves and wouldn’t…

Category: BeFriending Creation

Book Review: Nothing Lowly in the Universe: An Integral Approach to the Ecological Crisis by Jennie M. Ratcliffe

Poems: “The Earth is Us” and “gifts”

Roadmaps to a Better Future: Analyzing Climate Change Solutions Without Geoengineering

Is (the) Paris (Agreement) Burning?

Interfaith Earthcare Touchstones

Young and Old for Climate Justice

Considering Limits to Human Population Size

Farming for Social Change

For the Love of the Land

Flows Repeatedly: Learnings from the Menominee Nation

Listening to Roots, Walking in Beauty

Beckoned by Living Trees

Cultivating the Next Generation of Naturalists

“We Had Something, Now We Don’t.” Bolivian Friends Face the Climate Crisis

Casa Pueblo: Truly the People’s House

The Call and Response

When Climate Change Gets Personal

School’s Out

How to Help Pollinators in Your Own Neighborhood

An Easter Reflection with Joanna Macy

Public Banking, Divine Vocations, and Fertile Ground

A Story of Interbeing: A Book Review of Climate: A New Story By Charles Eisenstein

Southern Appalachian Quaker Youth Respond to Climate Crisis

Feeding Us with Love and Local Tradition

Awaking Across the Branches of Friends

Quaker Teachers Take on Climate Change and Restore Mexican Cloud Forest

So You’re Ready to Take Action Against Climate Change

The Changing Context of United Nations Climate Negotiations

The Bare Minimum: COP Climate Change Conference

Pachamama Alliance Promotes Grassroots Drawdown Action

Project Drawdown In Practice

Let Nature Teach

Finding Peace in Troubled Times

Changing Together? The COP24

A Quaker Youth’s Journey in Climate Activism

Going Green is Easy and Cheaper Now

Report from the Global Climate Action Summit

First Nation – Farmer Climate Unity March

Birds, Bees, and Butterflies: Monthly Meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas Creates New Habitat for Wildlife

A Fight for The Yintah

A Simple Freedom or Was it Just a Dream?

Seeking Grace: Reflections from the Rise Up for Climate, Jobs & Justice Mobilization

The Global Climate Action Summit From the Row behind the VIP Section

Stewardship is a Likely Place to Start: Mountain Valley Pipeline Resistance

Book Review: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis

Love & Political Power

Divestment for Social Change

Changing Corporations for the Better: Shareholder Engagement

To Address Climate Disruption, Start Here.

Mini-Grants at Work 2018

Meeting for Mourning: New England Friends Worship at Power Plant

Building a Community for Change: Hosting A Movie Night

Congress, Climate, & the Desktop Lobbyist

Praying on Seeds: Solidarity for Puerto Rican Sovereignty

The Small Water Cycle & Global Warming

Let the Youth Be Heard: Making the Courts Confront the Climate Crisis

Rapid City Friends Ask Your Meeting to Send a Letter to Congress

Engaging in Earthcare at Yearly Meetings

Book Review: The New Green Activist Bible?

Toronto Meeting Hosts ClimateFast Initiative

Rising Together: Community Health Mapping in South Florida

Adding Leaves to the Grove of Life

Sweet Balance with Earth

Peace, Justice and Ecology in Arkansas

Spiritual Ecology Center Opens in Mexican Cloud Forest

40 Quakers With 30 Agendas

The Gift That Keeps on Giving: Updates at Catoctin Quaker Camp

Population: A Controversial Witness

United With Nature: A Historic Reflection on QEW

Legislating Light with FCNL

Green in Sacramento

Money & Soul: Bringing Our Faith Values to the Economy

Potential Surprises

Organizing for Community and Climate

Rooted in Reverence: Reflections on the Climate Pilgrimage

May We Rise up From the Earth

Ecological Living at Quaker Retirement Community

Environmental Author Cynthia Barnett Talks to QEW

Juneau’s Journey Toward Renewable Energy